Monday, 29 November 2010

LIFE CHANGERS

Walter Green, a 71 year-old retired corporate CEO from San Diego, California has just completed one of the most remarkable journeys of the spiritual and cathartic sort. He traveled the world for one whole year to say thank you to 44 people who have changed his life. He cites the journey as being incredibly spiritual, one that has brought his life a ‘refocus’. He apparently does not like the word retired. I like this man in so many ways. His aim for the journey, aside from reaching out to these individuals, is to enlighten others about expressing their feelings in life before it is too late. Regrets, this man isn’t satisfied with a few, he wants none at all.

My first thought was of course one that sprung from sheer fatigue. Seriously, wouldn’t it have been a lot easier to send thank you cards? Traveling round the world and going through airport security that many times makes me want to put on four layers of clothing, knock back a double vodka and hug myself. Not to mention getting on an airplane over and over again. I don’t care how thankful I am; flying when I don’t have to is up there with root canal. You see why my path to spiritual enlightenment may take a bit longer that Walter’s.

My second thought was who are these people and what did they do that was so life changing to warrant tracking them down? And how much traveling has old Walter done in his life to explain being touched – in the good way of course - by the human race on a global scale? Did a chambermaid in Thailand that put an extra chocolate on his pillow that saved him in a diabetic moment? Did a policeman in Russia prevent him from falling on the railway tracks after ol’ Walt bought one of those fur donut hats that of course impeded his vision? Did a nice argentinian man prevent him from choking on an empanada?

These are the things I want to know of course. Who changed his life and why? I feel a book coming from Walter very very soon. I have to say that I agree with Walter wholeheartedly. I think the notion of thanking people that changed your life is not only important, but a definite pay it forward that needs to be carried out more often. Think about it, if more of us did this, it might spread like a contagious disease; everyone would be all hopped up on thanks, beaming with gratitude as they rang up old classmates and thanked them for letting them cheat off their paper. “If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve never gotten into Stanford!”….I kid I kid.

Okay, let’s see, I’m going to try and thank four people for changing my life – any more than that and my head might explode, I am a mother of a four month old after all my memory is a blur. Let’s see….Mom, thanks for deciding to have me. I wasn’t exactly planned, so I’m thinking she deserves to go to the top of the list. Thank you Doctor Defiory (how one spells that is beyond me) for being over for dinner when I almost cracked my skull open when I was three. I was convinced I could fly from my bed to my sister’s - sadly the bed frame had other ideas….thanks LG for inspiring me to write screenplays. Although it almost drove me into an asylum, it made me who I am today [if being trapped in Hollywood development for 10 years doesn’t toughen you up, nothing will]. And lastly, my partner of course. Thanks for helping me make the King. He’s a definite life changer. Cute too.